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Episode 778: Your Best Emails, with a Special Surprise(d) Guest
Date December 3, 2015 Summary Ben and Sam banter about rumors, answer emails about reclamation projects, a free-agent A-Rod, secret contracts, no-trade clauses, and more, and speak to someone who’s not expecting their call. Topics * Contracts for reclamation projects * Alex Rodriguez contract estimates * No-trade clauses * Teams without free agents * 1994 Montreal Expos * Having pitchers avoid starting against specific team * Not disclosing contract details Intro Macy Gray, "Why Didn't You Call Me" Interstitial Jonah Keri Podcast Theme Song Outro Sloan, "I'm Not Through With You Yet" Banter * Episode 777 follow-up: Sam clarifies his thoughts from the previous episode about how rich teams are increasingly developing prospects and poor teams are trading for them. * Non revelatory rumors: The Astros owner has been reported to be a 'big fan' of Aroldis Chapman. * Non revelatory rumors: Buster Olney reports that 'at least two' teams are watching to see if the price for Yoenis Cespedes drops. * Episode 774 follow-up: A listener wrote in with examples of how Earl Weaver used to manipulate batting order and DH assignments to prevent bad hitters from getting as many at-bats. Email Questions * Mick: "I don't understand how every year there are players who were successful reclamation projects (Happ, Hill, Murphy to a point) yet they almost never resign with the team that helped them rediscover the magic. Considering Happ signed for 3 years and $36 million with Toronto and disregarding what Pittsburgh could or would offer, what discount do you think the Pirates could have gotten for Happ and still signed him? Or, with most of these situations is it a combination of greed and ego that players are unwilling to cut their old team any slack?" * Michael: "What kind of contract would Alex Rodriguez get on the open market this winter? Coming off his 33 homer, 131 OPS+ campaign?" * Dave: "When reading about the Trumbo trade I saw reference to his per 162 games average over the last several years, implying that that would be a typical year. What is the actual number of games that would represent a typical year?" * Sam: "You guys were talking about players picking teams for reasons like restaurants and culture and I wanted to submit Jay Bruce's no-trade clause for consideration. It includes seven teams: Yankees, Blue Jays, A's, Red Sox, Twins, Marlins, Diamondbacks, and Rays. I won't even give my thoughts because I wanna see what patterns you can draw from this." * Scott: "Has any team ever started a season without a single player who had been in the league long enough to reach free agency? To be sure, Mike Trout is making free agent money but wouldn't qualify under the above definition because he hasn't accumulated sufficient service time. I checked COTS but didn't see an easy way to answer this question. Can Play Index do it?" * Darius: "I just read The Head Game and in the chapter on Warren Spahn he writes that Spahn almost never started against the Dodgers for three years in the 1950s because the Dodgers' powerful right handed lineup and the short fence in left at Ebbet's Field were both bad matchups for him. I checked Spahn's game log to confirm and sure enough between 1954-1957 Spahn pitched only a few innings against the Dodgers. I also found a Joe Posnanski piece commenting on this. Do you think there is ever a situation in which teams might adopt this approach now? The change in reliever usage has obviously changed the role of the starter significantly since Spahn's career, but in extreme situations such as a fringey left hander up against the Jays in the Rogers Centre, would a team get enough benefit from skipping that starter, calling up a spot starter, or shuffling their rotation, to ensure that the pitcher in question missed that series? Would it have too much of a negative impact on the pitcher's confidence even if the team thought it was worthwhile otherwise?" * Nick: "How would the baseball experience change if player contracts weren't made public and the only people who knew contract details were the 30 GMs/owners and the individual players? In other words, the contracts themselves would stay the same as they are now but the media and fans wouldn't know how much and for how long players were signed and teammates wouldn't know how much more/less they were being paid compared to one another." Play Index * Sam answers Scott's email about teams with the fewest players who have hit free agency (from 1988-2015). * The 1994 Montreal Expos did not have a single player on their roster during the season that had reached free agency. * The 1994 Expos had two players that had played in 7 or more seasons. However upon checking both had fewer than 7 years of service time. Notes * Sam thinks that Alex Rodriguez does not have as much baggage attached to him as one might think, and that teams would not necessarily lower their price for him because of his past. * Ben and Sam think there is a 30% chance that Rodriguez plays in 2018 (his contract expires in 2017). * Players who qualified for the batting title in 2015 averaged 147 games played during the season. * Ben and Sam call Jonah Keri to discuss the fun fact they discovered about the 1994 Expos. In Episode 418 Ben and Sam interview Jonah about the Expos and his book Up, Up, and Away. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 778: Your Best Emails, with a Special Surprise(d) Guest Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes Category:Guest Episodes Category:Non-Revelatory Rumors